And that was enough for them to be regular visitors to the shores where the story takes place, though it was probably too far for them to bother.
Also, what is Long-Lake? There are plenty of places you could pick for such a body of water on the map, west of Gotland, and I’ll keep this one my own secret. I visited it once, and while it is nowhere as large or takes one as far to the interior of Sweden as I make it in the book, those shores and rivers I visited had a mythical, magical, ancient feel to them, and I could easily see the Goths and Svea fighting over the shores of these waterways.
As you see, we have a lot of room for imagination here. One must remember this is fiction, not accurate historical study, and I dare say it is no better or worse than many of those non-fiction works claiming they can prove a theory in an era where so little has been written of the subject. This book touches lands the Roman’s didn’t conquer or know. Sometimes we have to let our imagination take the place of science, especially when there is no way to prove what is the truth. I like to trust the laws of likelihood, if nothing else. It is likely there were many Germanic tribes in the area, and that they all shared trade, intermarried, explored, and shared gods and beliefs.
As for the family of Maroboodus and their belief in them being the first of men, their belief there is a curse set on the blood of their family? One that might bring Midgard to an end, as well as the gods and the Nine Worlds themselves? All fiction, of course. Aska and Embla were rumored to have been created in the northern shores by Woden (Odin) and his fellow gods, so I make that shore to be Gothonia, and since Lok was deemed the enemy of the gods after the death of Baldr, it made for an intriguing storyline to create this curse originating from the trickster. It will be mostly solved in the Hraban Chronicles, but will plague Maroboodus and his relationship with Hulderic in the coming books of Goth Chronicles as well.
One more thing. The focus of Germanic warfare rests on the shoulders of the champions, heroes of the warbands. Such men were the speartip of ancient warfare, half-professional fighters who led the warriors of the lords, and I introduced plenty of them in the book. Did it go overboard? Probably a bit. But then, every good fight needs a famous death, and since the book had plenty of good fights, I needed many famed men to fall. After so many famous deaths, Maroboodus has no place in the world of Goths after Dragon’s Tail.
And I am sorry for Saxa. I needed something to break Maroboodus, to make him colder, less idealistic, less happy, so there is something for him to brood over in the coming books. Saxa’s death did the trick, sadly. He’ll love again. Too many times, perhaps.
That’s it. More to come, hope you enjoyed the book. I tried to paint the world and the characters as believable as they might be. It’s no tale of Viking raids, though it was probably not too different, to be honest, no matter the difference of eight hundred years. It was a violent, hungry world, after all and the Goths would not later conquer the Roman world if they had been content and happy in the north.
Table of Contents
MAROBOODUS
A WORD FROM THE AUTHOR
OTHER BOOKS BY THE AUTHOR
MAP OF THE GOTH SHORES B.C. 30 (SWEDEN)
NAMES AND PLACES
RAVENNA (A.D. 37)
BOOK 1: THE GATHERING STORM
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
BOOK 2: THIRD CHOICES
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
BOOK 3: THE HUNT
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
BOOK 4: DRAGON’S TAIL
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
BOOK 5: HOGHOLM
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
RAVENNA (A.D. 37)
SOME THOUGHTS
Maroboodus: A Novel of Germania (The Goth Chronicles Book 1) Page 37
